Welcome back from summer! After a warm start to the semester, it now feels more like early fall, but this is Ohio and if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes and it will change. I hope everyone got a chance to the see the Great American Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017. If you didn’t, don’t worry, there will be other opportunities.

I want to personally welcome the students of the class of 2021 and invite you to stop by Thomas Library. If you check your campus mail box you will find a post card from the library. Bring it in and drop it off at the Circulation Desk to be entered in a drawing for a gift basket. If you have any questions about the library and the various services we offer, please feel free to e-mail me; or stop by the library, I would enjoy the opportunity to meet you.

To the members of the Classes of 2018, 2019 and 2020 I offer a warm welcome back to campus. I hope everyone had a good summer and is glad to be back. For some of you this is the last fall semester of your undergraduate careers; hopefully you can look back on your time at Wittenberg with pride, joy and good memories. All too soon you will leave us behind and go out and make us all proud of what you will accomplish in the “real world.” Before you do, take the time to enjoy what we have here at Wittenberg and take advantage of all the good things, including Thomas Library.

We continue to try to make the library a better place for students and one that you want to come to for studying and conducting research. Some improvements you may notice this year are new carpet on the 2nd and 3rd floors of the library in the area located under Weaver Chapel. We also made some changes on the first floor and we now have a current periodicals area again where you can browse the most recent issues of our journals and magazines. We are working on finishing the work in the lower level lab and our Special Collections/Archives space. This area was damaged by a flooding incident last year and we hope to bring it back on line during Fall 2017. A suggestion box can be found near the large tree in the atrium. We do check it and respond to your suggestions. Of course, not all of the suggestions are items we can deal with on short notice, i.e. the heating and cooling of the building, an ongoing, long-term issue that we are all too aware of.

The Library staff is ready to assist you in any way we can with your research and studies. Thomas Library has an excellent collection of books and journals in the building. In addition, you have access to millions of other books and journal articles from OhioLINK and beyond. The electronic resources, such as journal indices, full-text journals and electronic books, would be an unbelievable bounty to the students of institutions similar to Wittenberg in other states. The Thomas Library staff is first rate and will do everything they can to assist you during your time here at Wittenberg.

Good luck to all!
Doug